


Five times the universe conspired against Sam getting his degree and one time it didn’t

by smaragdbird



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Steve is a good boyfriend, University, sam just wants to finish his phd, scott wants to meet aliens, supervillains ruin everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 22:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9094051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: Sam goes back to college to get a higher psychology degree and has to balance his class load with being an Avenger, supervillains, galactic diplomacy and the universe seemingly conspiring against him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this ](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/20763.html?thread=51164699#t51164699) prompt

I  
Steve had offered to leave him off the mission.

“Yeah, sure and who’s going to catch you when you decide to jump off another building?” Had been Sam’s answer to that suggestion.

Right now he cursed himself for not taking Steve up on it. 2500 words essay in less than eight hours from scratch, why couldn’t there be an alien invasion when you needed one? His eyes were burning from the lack of sleep already and his hands felt slightly jittery from too much caffeine. Like clockwork Steve appeared every half an hour with a fresh cup of progressively stronger coffee. 

“You could go to bed, you know?” Sam said five hours and 1795 words into his essay.

“Can’t sleep without you”, Steve replied and swapped his empty mug for a fresh one.

Sam felt like crying when the word count finally showed 2503 words without references. “Thank God”, he muttered.

“Knew you could do it”, Steve said and pressed a kiss to his hair. “How about breakfast and then Natasha can drive you.”

“I’d ask what I did to deserve you but then I did take down a major government conspiracy with you”, Sam quipped.

“And I could say I told you so but I won’t”, Steve countered. He made Sam help with cooking the breakfast, knowing that if he let him sit, he’d probably fall asleep at the kitchen table.

“Do you want to swap places and go to my lectures while I take a nap?” Sam asked between eggs and what felt like his hundredth cup of coffee.

“If that also means you’re going to take over my hand to hand training with Natasha this afternoon, I’m all game”, Steve replied.

“You’re evil.”

Steve grinned. “I know.”

He walked Sam to the garage where Natasha was already waiting for him.

“I’ll be there at four to pick you up. Try not to fall asleep in class.”

“As if”, Sam replied around a giant yawn.

Steve gave him an indulgent smile and kissed him before getting back into the car.

“You two are disgustingly sweet”, Natasha said from the driver’s seat.

II  
He was on his way to an interview when he got kidnapped. He was pretty to close to the deadline for his case study already and if he didn’t want to pull an all-nighter again then his kidnappers had just wasted his last chance to submit in time.

Not to mention that his kidnappers hadn’t done anything yet apart from taking him hostage. Also it was Tuesday evening, Steve had his art classes and Sam had told everyone he’d probably run late. His friends likely didn’t even know he was missing yet.

They had put him a room with sturdy walls on three sides and one made of bars with a single henchman standing guard. They also hadn’t bound his hands or even taken his bag from him. If Sam didn’t know that he was held prisoner aboard some kind of airship he would’ve already tried to escape.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Sam asked the henchman, suddenly having an idea.

“I’m not telling you anything about the boss.”

“It’s not that. It’s for uni. I have to do a case study for my psychology class and since you kidnapped me on the way to the interview with my actual case study…” he trailed off.

“Psychology?” The henchman looked somewhere between intrigued and worried. “Isn’t that where you ask me about my relationship with my mother? Which is fine by the way.”

“It’s actually more related to your moods and how you handle stress”, Sam explained. “And it’s anonymous.”

“Guess that’s okay then.”

They left him his bag after checking it for weapons and taking his phone which meant that his papers were still in there. Sam got them out and started with the questions. Turned out that being henchman to a superpowered electricity mutant could be pretty stressful. But it was the best offer he got after getting out of prison since no one else wanted to hire him and he had two boys he could only see on the weekends. The henchman’s story was so much like Scott’s story that Sam felt sympathy even though he was the victim here.

In fact by the time the Avengers finally turned up to rescue him, Sam had given the henchman the address of an organisation that helped ex-cons. 

III  
“I have an exam in two hours”, Sam protested but there was no getting out of bed when Steve didn’t want him to.

“I’m sure being in the hospital will count as a valid excuse”, Steve said, glaring down at him.

“Mr It’s-just-a-flesh-wound is lecturing me on staying in bed? Really?”

“It’s Captain-It’s-just-a-flesh-wound and yes, I am. Just like you do every single time.”

Sam couldn’t really argue with that.

IV  
Sam wasn’t even in on duty that night. Instead he had taken an evening off to get some work done in the library. A library wasn’t a high profile target, was it?

Apparently he was wrong as he stood outside the smouldering remains of said library and an evening’s worth of work.

“I’m really, really sorry”, Spiderman said sheepishly. “I didn’t know she could breathe fire.”

Fucking supervillains, Sam thought uncharitably. 

V  
An alien species that placed high importance on partnerships wanted to visit and meet with Captain America and his partner the Falcon at the same day Sam had an important conference he needed to attend.

Unfortunately no one else seemed to think that his academic career was more important than earth forging new diplomatic ties with the rest of the galaxy.

“Can’ Tony and Pepper go?” Sam asked. He was starting to feel like the universe didn’t want him to finish his degree. 

“Tony doesn’t lead the Avengers”, Maria Hill replied.

“And who would you have meet with them if Steve and I weren’t together? Literally else everyone on this team is single.”

“It’s just a conference. You can probably go to the next one”, she said dismissively.

“Have you been involved in academia lately?”

The look she gave him clearly said no.

“Can’t you ask them to postpone it?” Sam asked. “I just need three days.”

“We could sent someone else to pretend to be Sam”, Scott came to his help.

Maria Hill didn’t look impressed by his idea.

“Like who?” Steve asked.

“Like...me?” Scott replied. When everyone including Sam gave him sceptical looks, he added, “Come on guys, it’s aliens! Of course I want to meet them. Aliens!”

“You’d have to pretend to be Steve’s boyfriend”, Natasha pointed out.

Scott gave Steve an appraising look. “I spent three years in prison. I can make do with him.”

Maria Hill looked like she deeply regretted coming back into the superhero business.

“I’ll go”, Sam said, defeated. He looked at Steve. “World peace, right?”

Steve squeezed his hand encouragingly. “Galactic peace even.”

+I  
Miraculously there was no alien invasion on the day of his defence, no mad scientist’s escaped creation terrorising humanity, no accidentally superpowered people trying out their “gift” and even Hydra seemed to have collectively taken a day off.

Steve, Natasha and Scott were waiting for him outside. Sam tried to keep a straight face but he was pretty sure that they could see right through it.

“How did it go?” was the first thing Steve asked when Sam left the building. 

“As expected”, from the corner of his eyes he could see Natasha roll her eyes.

“Congratulations, Dr. Wilson.”Steve scooped him up and whirled him around before kissing him. “And there hasn’t even been a single explosion.”

“Don’t jinx it”, Sam tried to sound stern but the huge grin on his face was ruining it.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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